Hearing God Part 2

Listen with your heart!

How we listen to people around us is the way we listen to God. This may be shocking but it is so true. 

When we listen to someone, we are often more concerned with how we feel about what they are saying than we are about hearing them. We keep looking for a place to insert our story into the conversation.

When we listen with our heart, we ask questions from a vantage point of sincere interest in the other’s well-being and genuine curiosity about their experience.

To listen with our heart, we must slow down our minds and allow divine curiosity to permeate our thinking. If we do not allow for time to listen truly, we will gradually lose our ability to listen. When we lose our ability to listen to others, we lose our ability to listen to God.

When we listen to others, we give clear evidence that we value what they have to say, and therefore we show that we value them. True listening draws us closer to one another; it helps us become more whole, healthy, and holy.

Proverbs 12:15 Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice (NRSV)

James, the half-brother of Jesus, tells us to be swift to hear and slow to speak. We must listen more and speak less. How much strife and division could have been prevented if true listening had been practiced instead of hasty speech and voicing impetuous opinions.

Steps to listen with your heart.

1. Be curious. Curiosity creates a passion to listen. If we already know it all we will never learn anything new. We should have a desire to grow and learn new things every day. If you continue to learn you will not grow old.
2. Be humble. Humility sensitizes our ability to listen, whereas pride dulls our ability to hear.
3. Be teachable. Realize that others - no matter how we see them – can teach us something. Look for a lesson in every encounter.
4. Understand that the way we listen to our spouse, employer, teacher, colleague, friends, and our children, is the way we will listen to God!